ART

An anonymous American collector has paid $7.39 million at auction for an early cubist painting by Pablo Picasso, “Woman Sitting in an Armchair,” Christie’s London auction house said. The painting, which Picasso started in 1917 and completed in 1920, is thought to be modeled on Olga Kokhlova, daughter of a Russian general and a dancer whom Picasso met in Rome and married in 1918, Christie’s said. It was bought by an American collector bidding by telephone who wished to remain anonymous. Another Picasso work, “Woman’s Head,” painted in 1921 in the artist’s neo-classical style, sold for $5.91 million. A work by Paul Klee, “Uplift and Way,” painted in 1932, fetched $5.17 million and a work by Max Ernst, “Gray Forest,” painted in 1927, sold for $1.33 million.